Soviet Space Program
The Soviet space program was the rocketry and space exploration programs conducted by the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from the 1930s until its dissolution in 1991. Over its sixty-year history, this primarily classified military program was responsible for a number of pioneering accomplishments in space flight, including the first intercontinental ballistic missile (1957), first satellite (Sputnik-1), first animal in space (the dog Laika on Sputnik 2), first human in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1), first woman in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6), first spacewalk (cosmonaut Alexey Leonov on Voskhod 2), first Moon impact (Luna 2), first image of the far side of the moon (Luna 3) and unmanned lunar soft landing (Luna 9), first space rover, first space station, and first interplanetary probe. The rocket and space program of the USSR, initially boosted by the assistance of captured scientists from the advanced German rocket program, was performed mainly by Soviet engineers and scientists after 1955, and was based on some unique Soviet and Imperial Russian theoretical developments, many derived by Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskii, sometimes known as the father of theoretical astronautics. Sergey Korolyov (also transliterated as Korolev) was the head of the principal design group; his official title was "chief designer" (a standard title for similar positions in the USSR). Unlike its American competitor in the "space race", which had NASA as a single coordinating agency, the USSR's program was split among several competing design groups led by Korolyov, Mikhail Yangel, Valentin Glushko, and Vladimir Chelomei. Because of the program's classified status, and for propaganda value, announcements of the outcomes of missions were delayed until success was certain, and failures were sometimes kept secret. Ultimately, as a result of Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost in the 1980s, many facts about the space program were declassified. Notable setbacks included the deaths of Korolyov, Vladimir Komarov (in the Soyuz 1 crash), and Yuri Gagarin (on a routine fighter jet mission) between 1966 and 1968, and disastrous experiences with the huge N-1 rocket intended to power a manned lunar landing, and which exploded shortly after launch on each of four unmanned tests. The Soviet Space Program was dissolved with the fall of the Soviet Union, with Russia and Ukraine becoming its immediate heirs. Russia created the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, now known as the Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS), while Ukraine created the National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU). Origins Pre-war efforts The theory of space exploration was well established in the Russian Empire before the First World War from the writings of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who published pioneering papers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and in 1929 even introduced the concept of the multistaged rocket. Similarly the practical aspects were established by early experiments carried out by the reactive propulsion study group, GIRD in the 1920s and 1930s, where such pioneers as Sergey Korolyov—who dreamed of traveling to Mars:5—and German-Russian engineer Friedrich Zander worked. On August 18, 1933, GIRD launched the first Soviet liquid-fueled rocket Gird-09, and on November 25, 1933, the first hybrid-fueled rocket GIRD-X. In 1940-41 another advance in the reactive propulsion field was made: the development and serial production of the Katyusha multiple rocket launcher. The Germans During the 1930s Soviet rocket technology was comparable to Germany's, but Joseph Stalin's Great Purge severely damaged its progress. Many leading engineers were killed, and Korolyov and others were imprisoned in the Gulag. Although the Katyusha was very effective on the Eastern Front during World War II, the advanced state of the German rocket program amazed Russian engineers who inspected its remains at Peenemünde and Mittelwerk after the end of the war in Europe. Although the Americans had secretly moved most leading German scientists and 100 V-2 rockets to the United States in Operation Paperclip the Russian program greatly benefited from captured German records and scientists, in particular drawings obtained from the V-2 production sites. Under the direction of Dimitri Ustinov, Korolyov and others inspected the drawings. Helped by rocket scientist Helmut Gröttrup and other captured Germans until the early 1950s, they built a replica of the V-2 called the R-1, although the weight of Soviet nuclear warheads required a more powerful booster. Korolyov's OKB-1 design bureau was dedicated to the liquid-fueled cryogenic rockets he had been experimenting with in the late 1930s. Ultimately, this work resulted in the design of the R-7 Semyorka intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which was successfully tested in August 1957. Sputnik and Vostok The Soviet space program was tied to the USSR's Five-Year Plans and from the start was reliant on support from the Soviet military. Although he was "single-mindedly driven by the dream of space travel", Korolyov generally kept this a secret while working on military projects—especially, after the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb test in 1949, a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to the United States—as many mocked the idea of launching satellites and manned spacecraft. Nonetheless, the first Soviet rocket with animals aboard launched in July 1951; the two dogs were recovered alive after reaching 101 km in altitude. Two months ahead of America's first such achievement, this and subsequent flights gave the Soviets valuable experience with space medicine. Because of its global range and large payload of approximately five tons, the reliable R-7 was not only effective as a strategic delivery system for nuclear warheads, but also as an excellent basis for a space vehicle. The United States' announcement in July 1955 of its plan to launch a satellite during the International Geophysical Year greatly benefited Korolyov in persuading Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to support his plans in January 1956, in order to surpass the Americans. Plans were approved for Earth-orbiting satellites (Sputnik) to gain knowledge of space, and four unmanned military reconnaissance satellites, Zenit. Further planned developments called for a manned Earth orbit flight by 1964 and an unmanned lunar mission at an earlier date. After the first Sputnik proved to be a successful propaganda coup, Korolyov—now known publicly only as the mysterious "Chief Designer of Rocket-Space Systems"—was charged to accelerate the manned program, the design of which was combined with the Zenit program to produce the Vostok spacecraft. Still influenced by Tsiolkovsky—who had chosen Mars as the most important goal for space travel—in the early 1960s the Russian program under Korolyov created substantial plans for manned trips to Mars as early as 1968 to 1970. With closed-loop life support systems and electrical rocket engines, and launched from large orbiting space stations, these plans were much more ambitious than America's goal of landing on the moon. Funding and support Soviet military's funding would focus on the Strategic Rocket Forces' ICBMs, and the space program "rode its coattails". While the West believed that Khrushchev personally ordered each new space mission for propaganda purposes, and the Soviet leader did have an unusually close relationship with Korolyov and other chief designers, he "was more concerned about money and missiles than he was about cosmonauts and the cosmos...He was never particularly interested in competing with Apollo."While the government and the Communist Party used the program's successes as propaganda tools after they occurred, systematic plans for missions based on political reasons were rare, one exception being Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, on Vostok 6 in 1963. Missions were planned based on rocket availability or ad hoc reasons, rather than scientific purposes. For example, the government in February 1962 abruptly ordered an ambitious mission involving two Vostoks simultaneously in orbit launched "in ten days time" to obscure John Glenn's Mercury-Atlas 6 that month; the program could not do so with Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 until August. Internal Competition Unlike the American Space program which had NASA as a single coordinating structure directed by its Administrator, James Webb through most of the 1960s, the USSR's program was split between several competing design groups. Despite the remarkable successes of the Sputniks between 1957 and 1961 and Vostoks between 1961 and 1964, after 1958 Korolyov's OKB-1 design bureau faced increasing competition from his rival chief designers, Mikhail Yangel, Valentin Glushko, and Vladimir Chelomei. Korolyov planned to move forward with the Soyuz craft and N-1 heavy booster that would be the basis of a permanent manned space station and manned exploration of the Moon. However, Ustinov directed him to focus on near-Earth missions using the very reliable Voskhod spacecraft, a modified Vostok, as well as on interplanetary unmanned missions to nearby planets Venus and Mars. Yangel had been Korolyov's assistant but with the support of the military he was given his own design bureau in 1954 to work primarily on the military space program. This had the stronger rocket engine design team including the use of hypergolic fuels but following the Nedelin catastrophe in 1960 Yangel was directed to concentrate on ICBM development. He also continued to develop his own heavy booster designs similar to Korolyov's N-1 both for military applications and for cargo flights into space to build future space stations. Glushko was the chief rocket engine designer but he had a personal friction with Korolyov and refused to develop the large single chamber cryogenic engines that Korolyov needed to build heavy boosters.Chelomei benefited from the patronage of Khrushchev and in 1960 was given the plum jobs of developing a rocket to send a manned craft around the moon and a manned military space station. With limited space experience, his development was slow. The Apollo program's progress alarmed the chief designers, who each advocated for his own programs as response. Multiple, overlapping designs received approval, and new proposals threatened already approved projects. Due to Korolyov's "singular persistence", in August 1964 —more than three years after the United States declared its intentions— the Soviet Union finally decided to compete for the moon. It set the goal of a lunar landing in 1967 —the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution— or 1968. At one stage in the early 1960s the Soviet space program was actively developing 30 projects for launchers and spacecraft. With the fall of Krushchev in 1964, Korolyov was given complete control of the manned space program. After Korolyov Korolyov died in January 1966 following a routine operation that uncovered colon cancer and died from complications from heart disease and severe hemorrhaging. Kerim Kerimov, who was formerly an architect of Vostok 1, was appointed Chairman of the State Commission on Piloted Flights and headed it for the next 25 years (1966–1991). He supervised every stage of development and operation of both manned space complexes as well as unmanned interplanetary stations for the former Soviet Union. One of Kerimov's greatest achievements was the launch of Mir in 1986. Leadership of the OKB-1 design bureau was given to Vasili Mishin, who had the task of sending a man around the Moon in 1967 and landing a man on it in 1968. Mishin lacked Korolyov's political authority and still faced competition from other chief designers. Under pressure Mishin approved the launch of the Soyuz 1 flight in 1967, even though the craft had never been successfully tested on an unmanned flight. The mission launched with known design problems and ended with the vehicle crashing to the ground, killing Vladimir Komarov. This was the first in-flight fatality. Following this disaster and under new pressures, Mishin developed a drinking problem. The Soviets were narrowly beaten in sending the first manned flight around the Moon in 1968 by Apollo 8, but Mishin pressed ahead with development of the problematic super heavy N1 rocket in the hope that the Americans would have a setback, leaving enough time to make the N-1 workable and land a man on the moon first. There was a success with the joint flight of Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 in January 1969 that tested the rendezvous, docking and crew transfer techniques that would be used for the landing, and the LK Lander was tested successfully in earth orbit. But after four unmanned test launches of the N-1 ended in failure, the heavy booster was abandoned and with it any chance of the Soviets landing men on the moon in a single launch. Besides the manned landings, abandoned Soviet moon program included a building the multipurpose moonbase Zvezda, first detailed such project with developed mockups of expedition vehicles and surface modules. Later proposed new moon manned program "Vulkan-LEK" were not adopted on economic reasons. Following this setback, Chelomei convinced Ustinov to approve a program in 1970 to advance his Almaz military space station as a means of beating the US's announced Skylab. Mishin remained in control of the project that became Salyut but the decision backed by Mishin to fly a three-man crew without pressure suits rather than a two-man crew with suits to Salyut 1 in 1971 proved fatal when the re-entry capsule depressurized killing the crew on their return to Earth. Mishin was removed from many projects, with Chelomei regaining control of Salyut. After working with NASA on the Apollo Soyuz Test Project, the Soviet leadership decided a new management approach was needed and in 1974 the N-1 was cancelled and Mishin dismissed. A single design bureau was created NPO Energia with Glushko as chief designer. Despite of failure of manned lunar programs, USSR achieved a significant success with two historical firsts, the automatic Lunokhod and the Luna sample return missions. Also, the Mars probe program was continued with some small success, while the explorations of Venus and then of the Halley comet by Venera and Vega probe programs was more effective. Program Secrecy Citizens of the Soviet Union believed the Soviet space program capable of accomplishing any feat. Their blind faith is the result of the program’s secrecy because by knowing less, the future seemed limitless. The Soviet space program had withheld information on its projects predating the success of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. In fact, when the Sputnik project was first approved, one of the most immediate courses of action the Politburo took was to consider what to announce to the world regarding their event. The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) established precedents for all official announcements on the Soviet space program. The information eventually released did not offer details on who built and launched the satellite or why it was launched. However, the public release is illuminating in what it does reveal : “there is an abundance of arcane scientific and technical data...as if to overwhelm the reader with mathematics in the absence of even a picture of the object”. What remains of the release is the pride for Soviet cosmonautics and the vague hinting of future possibilities then available after Sputnik’s success. Clearly, The Soviet Space Program’s use of secrecy served as both a tool to prevent the leaking of classified information between countries and also to create a mysterious barrier between the space program and the Soviet populace. The program’s nature embodied ambiguous messages concerning its goals, successes, and values. The program itself was so secret that a regular Soviet citizen could never achieve a concrete image of it, but rather a superficial picture of its history, present activities, or future endeavors. According to author/historian Dominic Phelan “Launchings were not announced until they took place. Cosmonaut names were not released until they flew. Mission details were sparse. We did not know the size or shape of their rockets or cabins or most of their spaceships, except for the first Sputniks, lunar probes and Venus probe”. However, because of its nature, the Soviet space program suffered a paradox. On one hand, officials attempted to promote the space program by frequently connecting its successes to the strength of socialism. On the other hand the same officials understood the importance of secrecy in the context of the Cold War. This stress on secrecy in the USSR can be understood as a measure to protect its strengths and weaknesses. Such reasoning for secrecy was motivated by the desire to protect information necessary for national security. A desire that wished to positively promote the external image of the Soviet state to the outside world by limiting content which may taint its image, thus conveying the government’s control over ideas and technology and the protection of Soviet inventions. However, the military influence of the Soviet space program may be its most sweeping explanation for the shroud of secrecy that surrounded the program. The early successes of the program (Sputnik, Laika, Yuri Gagarin) orchestrated by the Experimental Design Bureau-1 (OKB-1) were undoubtedly a critical factor. The OKB-1 was subordinated under the Ministry of General Machine Building. This ministry had been a highly secretive military-industrial complex that had been targeted by Western intelligence forces’ scrutiny during the Cold War. Originally, the OKB-1’s primary goal was the production and further improvement of intercontinental ballistic missiles. This changed in the 1960s with the shift in gears towards the “space race”, but the association with the overtly military missile project remained and the Soviet space program’s achievements were covered in another layer of secrecy. Military affairs regarding the development of weapons, like the intercontinental ballistic missile project operated under the most clandestine practices. Soviet military industrial officers constructed an esoteric policy of labeling weapons which relied on a logic-less random number-letter system. “For example the Vostok spacecraft was referred to as ‘object IIF63’ while its launch rocket was ‘object 8K72K’”. Even the factory workers contracted to build and deliver parts for spacecraft construction had a minuscule conception of the larger picture. Enforced rules and separate divisions of access prevented workers of one section to gain knowledge of what was going occurring in other developmental departments. The origin of intense military secrecy, which eventually branched into the space program, emerged as a temporary practice first adopted during the Civil War. These clandestine measures were reapplied in 1927 with the renaming of defense factories to sets of numbers. This practice would be adopted into research and design projects within the factories, and the tradition would continue in order to obfuscate Soviet goals from their adversaries. However, still paranoid that Western intelligence forces would be able understand the private code, employees were not allowed to discuss the code in public but rather needed to refer to the factories, institutes, and departments in public by using another code, a special post office box numbers, for their identification. In retrospect, one can now observe the pattern which emerged as Soviet Space exploits became more frequent. The program eliminated contingency in its announcements to the public. As far as the people knew, the Soviet space program had never experienced failure. According to author/historian James Andrews, “With almost no exceptions, coverage of Soviet space exploits, especially in the case of human space missions, omitted reports of failure or trouble”. Out of fear of admitting any defeat, reports of cosmonauts’ missions leaned towards an exaggerated positive spin rather than factual substance. “The USSR was famously described by Winston Churchill as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" and nothing signified this more than the search for the truth behind its space program during the Cold War. Although the Space Race was literally played out above our heads, it was often obscured by a figurative 'space curtain' that took much effort to see through” says Dominic Phelan. However, what should be comprehended is that the demands for the secrecy, which revolved around the space program, are likely to have been influenced by overarching Soviet military imperatives. Category:USSR Category:Soviet Space program